


Tape Madness

by jmtorres



Category: Sector General - White
Genre: Other, i blame niqaeli
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmtorres/pseuds/jmtorres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are you having a problem with Prilicla?" O'Mara asked.<br/>"No! No," Conway said, startled into looking up at O'Mara briefly.<br/>"That would be yes, then," O'Mara said drily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tape Madness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TeaRoses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Мнемограмма безумия](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11611134) by [Fandom_Medic_2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandom_Medic_2017/pseuds/Fandom_Medic_2017)



> I blame niqaeli for this. I told her about a passage in which a droid interrupts Conway and Murchison in the hallway, noting that they are of the same classification and have been in close proximity for two minutes. niqaeli said, "What does their classification matter?" and when I suggested that a species difference was a barrier to sex, she announced that the droid lacked imagination.

O'Mara patiently waited until Conway closed the office door and took a seat. There was a certain deliberation to Conway's motions that spoke of an anxiety with physical symptoms that Conway was controlling to the best of his willpower. O'Mara deemed it a necessary courtesy not to disturb whatever improvement to Conway's functioning this allowed, at least until he determined if the deliberation did constitute an improvement over whatever state it covered. O'Mara would have to upset Conway at some point during this session in order to discover that, he realized.

Conway didn't speak. Having given him three seconds in his chair to pull himself together, O'Mara prompted him, "You said you were having trouble with one of your educator tapes."

"Ah. Yes," Conway said quietly. And nothing more.

After another three seconds of leeway, during which Conway only stared down at his hands, O'Mara said, "Well, damn it, which one?"

"The, ah," Conway said and licked his lips, "Cinrusskin." He fell silent again.

Of course; it was Conway's most recent imprint--it was unlikely he would be complaining of problems with anything of older vintage. Still, O'Mara hadn't foreseen any problems with giving Conway a Cinrusskin tape, a lack of foresight which annoyed him. Conway got on perfectly well with Prilicla, an actual flesh-and-blood Cinrusskin--well, flesh-and-ichor. "Are you having a problem with Prilicla?" O'Mara asked.

"No! No," Conway said, startled into looking up at O'Mara briefly.

"That would be yes, then," O'Mara said drily.

"It's not Prilicla's fault," Conway said hurriedly. "It's my own. Only I can't hide it, of course, Prilicla sees everything I feel--" He broke off with a shamefaced glance at O'Mara, before looking back down at his wringing hands.

There was an off-note in Conway's misery, as if perhaps he didn't truly wish to hide whatever he was feeling, at least not from Prilicla. He seemed fairly determined to hide it from O'Mara, despite his request for psychological assistance. O'Mara cocked his head. He then propped it up with his fist to simulate boredom. In all likelihood, Conway's reticence to explain was indicative of a sexual problem, so the best course O'Mara could take at present was to imply it was so mundane as to be not worth his while; fetishizing interest would only worsen matters.

"Are you attracted to Dr. Prilicla?" O'Mara said with a feigned yawn.

"No!" said Conway, just as before.

O'Mara did not hesitate to assure him: "I understand perfectly."

"Why, do you find Prilicla attractive?" Conway asked suspiciously.

"No, but I'm not carrying an imprint from its species," O'Mara replied. "It's a normal tape side effect, albeit one most doctors choose not to talk about. It's easier to complain how as a meat-eater all your personalities want a salad than to discuss what other conflict of wants you might be experiencing." There. Surely that was normalizing enough to help matters somewhat.

"I know all that," Conway said irritably. "I've had _that_ happen before."

"Have you?" O'Mara asked, allowing a mild interest in salacious gossip to manifest, since Conway was speaking somewhat more normally.

"With the Melfan delegation," Conway expanded. "There was one, she had the cutest spots on her carapace--it was completely ridiculous, but I couldn't stop looking at them."

"You didn't come to me for help then," O'Mara probed.

Conway lapsed into pensive silence again, leaving O'Mara to try to tease the problem out of what clues Conway had already provided.

"Because the Melfans were only visiting, whereas Prilicla is a station resident?" O'Mara offered. "Are you concerned about the long-term effects to your professional relationship?"

"Not exactly." Conway rubbed the back of his neck. O'Mara watched this attempt at stress relief and extended the customary three seconds of response time. "With the Melfan, there was--separation," Conway said haltingly. O'Mara let him go on. "One part of me was head-over-heels, but another part of me always knew it was absurd. It's not like that with Prilicla. I don't know why that should be so and I'm afraid it won't go away when this case is done and I can erase the tape."

Curious. Interaction of personalities? A glimmer of comprehension flickered in O'Mara's mind. To buy time to fan it to full flame, he asked for unnecessary clarification: "Your core self has sexual feelings for Prilicla?"

"Not so much sexual as--romantic," Conway said. "It's not that I actually find her physically attractive; on the contrary, I don't know what the hell I'd do with her that wouldn't crush her to a pulp. But I want--I want to be _close_ to her."

O'Mara wondered if Conway was aware of his pronoun abuse. "Dr. Prilicla is male," he pointed out.

"Dr. Prilicla is a GLNO, so I don't see how that matters," Conway said shortly.

"You just referred to it as 'her,'" O'Mara replied. "The Melfan, too, in fact. Was it?"

"I don't recall," Conway said, sounding embarrassed. "I suppose my mind finds it easier to classify attraction if the object is feminine. Prilicla's certainly fragile enough," he mused.

O'Mara suppressed a sigh. Conway had exhibited that sort of misogyny before, but only toward his own species. O'Mara dearly hoped it was not going to break into some twisted form of xenophobia against whatever species exhibited traits concurrent with his own private bigotry about women; it would be a shame to lose Conway over what should have been an intraspecies problem. He would have to keep an eye on that in the long run.

For now, though, O'Mara would deal with the immediate problem Conway had requested help with. "You want to know why your core self wants to be close to Prilicla despite an absence of physical attraction," he said. "I believe that your desire is a solution proposed by your core self to a problem the Cinrusskin imprint is suffering, and that in all likelihood the desire will pass when you no longer carry the imprint and its problem."

"I don't understand," Conway complained. "What problem? Why would I think sex was a solution when the Cinrusskin part of me isn't physically attracted to Prilicla?"

"All psychological problems are rooted in some unmet need," O'Mara said. "What need does a Cinrusskin personality have that's going unfulfilled in your head?"

"I don't know!" Conway said. "I've adjusted my diet, my sleep schedule, I've been spending time in low-G..."

"Not all needs are physical," O'Mara prompted.

"Then what, emotional needs?" Conway said, and paused. O'Mara saw the realization. "You mean, the empathic capacity--that Prilicla has and I _don't._ The imprint feels--disconnected, as if it were blind or missing a hand. It wants to know what Prilicla feels--it should know what Prilicla feels--but I can't, I can't do that."

O'Mara waited for Conway to catch on to the rest of it.

"But to my mind," Conway continued slowly, "one of the effects of sex is emotional intimacy. Of the sort Cinrusskins must achieve by mere proximity."

Three seconds later, O'Mara said, "Well, was there something else?"

"Oh, I suppose not," Conway said, and excused himself.

It wasn't until two weeks later that O'Mara learned how things had turned out. Conway requested a follow-up appointment after the erasure of the Cinrusskin tape, which O'Mara feared meant the erasure hadn't gotten rid Conway's errant attraction. Still, he asked hopefully, "How did you resolve matters with Dr. Prilicla?"

"Oh," Conway said, blushing, "that involved a couple of antigravity harnesses and more patience than I knew I possessed. But, ah--"

O'Mara braced himself for some sort of morning after regrets.

"--it's not Dr. Prilicla I have a problem with now," Conway said.

"Then who?" O'Mara asked.

"Murchison," Conway confessed. The Earth-human romantic figure in Conway's life. "I was hoping you could tell her, maybe, that I was suffering from some terrible form of tape madness?"

O'Mara liked patients who provided their own solutions. He supposed this was a solution he could implement. It had, after all, the merit of being true.


End file.
